Hidden Empire (77 page)
Sirix said, “Knowing the answers will change many things.”
They were interrupted by an excited whoop from Louis in the other room. Margaret and DD hurried to him with the two black
robots following more sedately. Louis stood by the ancient machinery, which now throbbed and hummed. The stone window seemed
different somehow, as if it had transformed from solid rock to a pliable clay.
“I’ve got the power source working!” he crowed, and Margaret came forward to kiss him on the cheek. “It’s still fluctuating,
but I can make a definite guess about the purpose of this and all the similar stone windows.”
“Well, old man? Is it a transportation system?” Margaret asked.
“These trapezoidal stone windows are … portal walls. Klikiss mathematics and engineering are completely amazing. Using what
we already learned from the Torch, I was able to back-calculate and fill in some of the equations.” He placed one hand atop
the humming machinery, gesturing with the other toward the compelling blank trapezoid. “These portal walls are a completely
different type of star travel. According to the equations, this machinery makes the variable of distance go to zero. They
shift the reference frame, overlapping coordinates of different destinations.”
Margaret stared in amazement. “In other words, they could travel through these portal walls from Klikiss city to Klikiss city
without even climbing aboard a spaceship.”
“And without ekti, and without wasting any time.” He turned to the Klikiss robots. “Isn’t that right? Do you remember anything
yet?”
Sirix answered, “Your conjecture appears to be reasonable. Unfortunately, we cannot confirm or deny with certainty.”
“If you’re right, that explains why they never bothered to leave any records of spaceships, though they obviously traveled
from planet to planet.” Margaret turned to her husband, holding out a stern finger. “You’d better not even
think
about testing one of these portals, old man. That machinery has been nonfunctional for thousands of years. You may be a genius,
but you don’t really understand how it works yet.”
“No, dear.”
Abruptly, the two black robots swiveled on their ellipsoidal body cores and scuttled toward the exit of the chamber.
“Where are you going?” DD asked.
“We must inform Ilkot of this development,” Dekyk said.
Louis called after them, “Well, if you remember anything, come back and tell us right away.”
The Klikiss robots vanished, leaving Margaret and Louis alone with DD. Margaret turned to the compy. “When the robots talk
to each other in their electronic language, can you understand any of it?”
“Not all of it, Margaret, but a substantial portion.”
“And? What were they just saying to each other?”
“Sirix and Dekyk seemed quite excited by your translations and deductions.”
She frowned. “Were they excited, as in ‘thrilled and happy’? Or were they more… agitated.”
“Those nuances are beyond my capabilities of interpretation,” DD said. “I am very sorry, Margaret.”
Louis’s enthusiasm and good cheer could not be diluted. He placed his bony arm around his wife’s shoulders and gave her another
hug. “We still have that dusty old bottle of champagne we brought with us, don’t we, dear? Tonight we have plenty of cause
to celebrate.”
Margaret smiled. “Absolutely right, old man—if I can just
finish translating this section of the wall. I think the Klikiss
have a few more surprises in store for us.”
“Incredible!” Her voice was husky in her dry throat. At last, after staring for hours and crouching until her muscles cramped,
Margaret couldn’t believe what she read.
Beside her, DD said brightly, “I am sure it is incredible, Margaret.”
She had meticulously transcribed every portion of the scrawled messages. But now, cold and distracted, Margaret felt reluctant
to share her secret. The implications weighed upon her.
Out of habit, she stored a backup of her work in an alcove, then took the original datawafer and hurried into the chamber
where Louis continued to tinker with the portal wall machinery.
Though her skin was pale and her eyes wide, he was too focused on his own exciting discovery to notice anything wrong. “Well,
dear, I think I’ve got this now. I compared this setup with the other portal walls we discovered on Llaro, Pym, and Corribus.
If we dig deep enough into the database we’ll find at least one portal wall inside every Klikiss city. But this one is different.”
Pressing a hand to the small of his aching back, he went over to the wall and pointed to coordinate tiles near the upper left
corner of the trapezoid. “At the other sites, some of the destination tiles were destroyed, as if someone smashed them before
departure. Whatever happened to the Klikiss, whoever sent them away or destroyed them… never finished here on Rheindic Co.”
“It was a war, Louis,” Margaret said. “An incredibly destructive war between titanic forces. The Klikiss race was a powerful
empire, yet they were insignificant players on such an immense battleground. Their robots took part in some manner, though
the details are unclear.” Louis was fascinated. “But what kind of war? Who were the Klikiss fighting against?”
She drew a deep breath. “The
hydrogues
, Louis! The deepcore aliens. This isn’t the first time they’ve attacked.”
Louis gasped, his astonishment melting into a boyish grin. “That’s incredible, Margaret. First, the portal wall discovery
and now this ancient war between the Klikiss and the hy-drogues—not even the Klikiss Torch can match such a breakthrough!”
He hugged her again. “We have to send news right away. Everybody needs to know.”
Margaret grabbed her husband by the shoulders, squeezing hard enough that his smile faded. “Louis, don’t you understand? The
hydrogues
completely wiped out
the Klikiss. They caused the race’s extinction across the Spiral Arm.” She looked hard at him, but he still didn’t seem to
see. “And now they’ve begun to attack humans!”
Margaret glanced into the other word-filled tunnels where the Klikiss ideographs were messier and harder to decipher, as if
someone had scribbled them in a rush. “DD, go string lights back in the deep passages. I think I can unravel the last of those
records now.”
“We need to get back to Arcas,” Louis said. “He can send the details to everyone in the Hansa.”
“I will be happy to do the work here while you return to camp, Margaret and Louis,” DD said.
Leaving the compy behind, the two xeno-archaeologists descended the scaffolding stairs along the canyon wall. They could write
more detailed reports later, but because of their new understanding of the hydrogue threat they wanted to send an immediate
summary of their discovery via the green priest.
In Rheindic Co’s night, the desert heat had dissipated after sunset. The breezes that whistled across the barren ground carried
a chill. When they arrived at the encampment, their tents and huts were dim.
Margaret saw no sign of the green priest. The mechanical water pump hummed in the stillness. An automatic light had switched
on inside Margaret and Louis’s tent, and another one shone dimly within Arcas’s dwelling, but she could see no shadow of the
green priest inside.
“Arcas!” Louis called. “Boy, do we have news for you. We need to send a telink message right away.”
But no answer came to him in the night. The camp remained silent and brooding. Nothing stirred. Uneasy, Margaret looked around,
peering into the shadows.
As always, Louis remained optimistic. “He’s probably over by his trees, and that’s where we need to go anyway to send our
message.” But when Margaret followed her husband to the stand of treelings, she stopped short. She saw the details in the
moonlight even before Louis switched on his handlight to verify what she had feared.
All of the worldtrees were destroyed.
Each one had been uprooted, its trunk severed. Some had been chopped off neatly, as if with shears; others had been ripped
apart, leaving ragged ends that still dripped sap like golden blood. The dead fronds drooped into the dust.
“What—what…”
Margaret turned, her face set. “Arcas,” she said, not calling his name as much as uttering her fear.
She ran back toward the camp where she still saw the faint glow inside the green priest’s tent. Louis followed her.
Margaret was already terrified, her stomach queasy. She reached the tent first, yanked open the door flaps, and stared. Louis
followed her, then stopped abruptly.
Inside, Arcas lay brutally murdered on the floor of his tent. His green-skinned body had been broken, lacerated, pummeled,
and crushed. A hundred fatal injuries covered him, as if his attacker had not understood what constituted a mortal wound and
had chosen to guarantee the result.
Sickened and horrified, Louis crept out on wobbly legs, unable to believe what he had seen. From the entrance to the tent,
Margaret looked out into the night, knowing how completely alone and defenseless they were.
T
he Mage-Imperator’s brutal raid came while Nira was asleep. She had no chance whatsoever to defend herself.
During rest periods inside the bright Prism Palace, under the always-dazzling light of the seven suns, Nira had grown accustomed
to wearing an opaque mask. The blindfold allowed her to sleep in darkness while her green-tinted skin continued to tingle
with the constant nourishment of sunshine.
She was resting well, weary but content. With Prime Designate Jora’h gone to Theroc on his diplomatic mission, Nira had plenty
of time to think here in the Palace. She could feel her body’s changes with the growing pregnancy. As soon as Jora’h returned
home after seeing the worldforest, she would tell him the joyous news. Although he already had numerous sons and daughters,
this one would be different from all the others, and she hoped he would be pleased. Together they could decide the best possible
future for their hybrid baby, a child that was sure to have remarkable potential.
Nira did not expect any lifelong commitment, such as human marriage, from the Prime Designate—that was impossible. But she
had already seen how devoted Jora’h was to his other children, how kind he remained to his brief lovers. And Nira knew that
the two of them shared something special.
Now that her handsome prince was gone, however, Nira concentrated on reading the
Saga of Seven Suns
to the potted treelings. Today she and Otema had recited one stanza after another, enjoying the magical Ildiran legends for
hours and hours. At the end of the day, Otema smiled at her assistant, complimented her on a job well done, and sent her to
bed….
In silence, seven muscular guards pushed their way into Nira’s quarters, startling her from a deep sleep.
“Take her,” said a gruff voice as she fought her way back to wakefulness. Strong arms gripped her, and she bumped into thick
body armor, smelled pungent bristling hair and the odor of penned animals. She clumsily peeled off her blindfold and blinked
in the dazzling light, trying to focus on the rough features of Bron’n and other guards she had seen around the Mage-Imperator.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“Take her,” Bron’n repeated, and the burly guards yanked her to her feet. They held throbbing katana spears with white blades
and chipped, faceted edges.
Nira squirmed and thrashed. “What have I done?” She reached behind her, fingers extended, trying to touch a nearby treeling
in its pot.
“Don’t let her close to the plant!” Bron’n snarled. With a jerk they tugged Nira away. Her soft fingertips barely brushed
the ornate enameled pot. The treeling wobbled, but did not fall and shatter on the floor.
“The Mage-Imperator ordered us to be quiet and efficient,” Bron’n said. “Others will return to these corridors soon.”
When words and actions failed her, Nira finally screamed. Bron’n cuffed her hard on the cheek, and she crumpled. Terror turned
her limbs to water as the guards hauled her out into the corridor.
“Do not damage her,” Bron’n ordered. “She is fertile and necessary.”
